


Days of Awe

by stars_inthe_sky



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Canon Jewish Character, Character Study, Female Jewish Character, Gen, Introspection, Jewish Character, Jewish Comics Day, Jewish Identity, POV Wanda Maximoff, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Yom Kippur | Atonement Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 09:44:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7043044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stars_inthe_sky/pseuds/stars_inthe_sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the holiest day of the Jewish year, Wanda contemplates her past, present, and the long winding road toward repairing a broken world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Days of Awe

**Author's Note:**

> There are a lot of Jewish traditions and Hebrew words referenced herein, some with more detail than others. I’ve included links to explanations for as many as I could. Please let me know if something is unclear or confusing to you, and I’ll do my best to clarify, either in comments or in the text itself. I welcome questions, corrections, and further discussion.

Wanda very nearly forgets it entirely. It’s mid-September, and autumn in New York feels unseasonably warm compared to what she knows. But there it is, in tidy sans-serif text on the calendar that Rhodey had tacked up in the kitchen.

 _Wednesday, September 23, 2015:_ [ _Yom Kippur_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur)  _(observed)_

She stares at the words for a few minutes, then silently returns the box of cereal she’s holding to the pantry. Having woken up earlier than the others, she’d thought to have a quick bite and some time to herself, perhaps on the roof, before beginning the day. Instead, she lands hard on one of the chairs at the nearby table, staring at her hands and the bowl of lemons that Sam had insisted would smell good.

They do, but suddenly she’s not hungry any more. She takes one, though, along with a pinch of cloves from the cupboard, and inhales their [mingled odors](http://www.dailyhalacha.com/m/halacha.aspx?id=387). It smells almost like she remembers.

***

The Maximoff family had never been particularly religious. The Russians, the Germans, the Communists—no one ruling or attempting to rule Sokovia in the last century ever had a kind thought to spare for its Jews, and so most of the community and its traditions have long since died out or migrated. The current government at least turned a blind eye in the face of more pressing matters and left the Novi Grad synagogue well enough alone, but it wasn’t as if [kosher food](https://www.kof-k.org/Industrial/WhatIsKosher.aspx) or ordained rabbis were plentiful anywhere in Eastern Europe to begin with.

They’d had a decent number of prayer books to go around, though, enough that she and Pietro had only had to share with each other most years. Though they rarely lit [Sabbath candles](http://www.jewfaq.org/shabbat.htm) on Friday nights or carried out any other day-to-day observances, their parents had always insisted on attending holiday services.

“The Russians, the Germans, the Communists—they all tried to get rid of us,” Marya would remind them every year. “We go to show we’re still here and we’re not going anywhere.”

Wanda hadn’t thought twice about leaving her hometown after burying her brother next to their parents, and here she is forgetting the holiest day of the year entirely.

“I am still me,” she whispers to herself, but, even with no one else around, she can’t hide the quaver in her voice.

***

Back in her room, Wanda squeezes her eyes shut and wills herself to remember what she can about today. Tenth of the month of [Tishrei](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tishrei). The final flourish of a [week and a half of atonement and repentance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Holy_Days) following the Jewish new year. A [fast day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur#General_observances), of course, abstaining from food and convenience and comfort to show your devotion, and you wear white like the angels because the Gates of Prayer are open, just for now.

The [words](http://www.chabad.org/holidays/JewishNewYear/template_cdo/aid/6577/jewish/Text-of-Al-Chet.htm) leap into her mind, “ _For the sin which we have committed before You under duress or willingly. And for the sin which we have committed before You by hard-heartedness. For the sin…_ ”

She remembers it’s part of a [longer litany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confession_\(Judaism\)). It wouldn’t be hard to look up the rest on the Internet, but using technology on a holiday—holy day—feels wrong. It’s considered [work](http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/shabbats-work-prohibition/), in a ritualistic sense, and, lapsed observer or not, she wants to do better in the new year.

So Wanda sits, alone, imagining an invisible [prayer book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddur) with half-remembered Hebrew and a little embossed square of text on the back noting the rich Americans who had donated it. She’s thought a lot about [golems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem#Hubris_theme) and demons, [Maccabees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maccabees) and [_moshiach_](http://www.chabad.org/library/moshiach/article_cdo/aid/1121893/jewish/The-Basics.htm), and persecution and miracles in the recent months and years. But she hasn’t thought about [_teshuvah_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repentance_in_Judaism). Now, today, it’s the only thing she can think of.

“ _For the sin which we have committed before You with the evil inclination. And for the sin which we have committed before You knowingly or unknowingly._ ”

***

She and Pietro stuck with their parents’ traditions in the time after their deaths, but they had stopped once Hydra entered their lives. The two of them had been shortsighted, but not naïve—they had no illusions about who they allied with. They had simply thought they could outsmart the Nazis, taking the offered power and using it against them later.

It was, in retrospect, a sort of twisted revenge fantasy, not just against Stark and his ilk but also the faceless men who’d poked and prodded countless Jews in [gruesome experiments a few generations earlier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation). Wanda and Pietro meant to overturn all of it, to tear apart the people who had torn apart their home and their family.

She had been so sure, at the time, that they were doing good, making things right. Perhaps they had been naïve, after all.

Thanks to the Avengers, they’d never had the chance to enact that revenge. She doesn’t mind that so much—dead is dead, and Vision ensures that the Stone can’t hurt anyone else. Sokovia is rebuilding, with money from Stark and his ilk, and Hydra and Ultron are both gone.

Thanks also to the Avengers, she’s left Sokovia and its little Jewish community behind. Wanda wonders if using her powers now counts as “[work](http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday0.htm),” too, technically forbidden on days like this.

She wishes she had someone to ask.

***

Yom Kippur and the Days of Awe preceding it aren’t about saying rosaries or staving off damnation. You’re meant to take account of yourself and your behavior, to acknowledge your wrongdoings and then ask forgiveness—both from God and from those you’ve wronged or may have wronged. And then you simply strive to do better.

The “may have” is critical, though, the understanding that your choices can have unintended effects that ripple into others’ lives, often for ill. Admitting [those sins](http://www.beth-tzedec.org/page/sermons/a/display/s/1/item/for-the-sin-we-have-committed-unknowingly-yom-kippur-yizkor-sermon-5776) is just as important as the ones you’ve committed knowingly; the prayers and the rituals are the same.

Wanda thinks, this year more than any before, that she understands why.

***

She’s not even sure the others know she’s a Jew. It’s clear that Americans are friendlier toward the [Chosen People](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_as_the_chosen_people) than Sokovians ever were, so she’s less concerned about sharing that information than she might be otherwise. But so far, it’s only one identity of many she wears, and the others—woman, witch, fighter, half of a forever-broken whole—take precedence.

If she were to tell them…well, they’re good people, or at least they try to be. They would likely offer to ferry her to a service in a nearby city, or even to stage one at the compound. They would mean well, and she wouldn’t have the heart to tell them that they can’t make a [_minyan_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minyan)—there aren’t enough of them, and they’re not [_b’nai mitzvah_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_and_Bat_Mitzvah) anyway—or that her own observances had always been so tied up in family and a community too stubborn to disappear that she’s not certain she can ever walk into a synagogue unhaunted again anyway.

She [beats her chest](http://www.jta.org/2013/08/31/jewish-holidays/at-yom-kippur-a-heads-up-on-chest-thumping) gently with each repeated admission and half-remembered prayer, as the ritual goes. It doesn’t hurt physically—it’s a symbol, not actual self-flagellation—but with each _thump_ , she can remember the sensation of her heart being ripped from her chest, of passing that pain onto an uncaring metal beast in moment of unfettered fury that, even now, she cannot quite bring herself to repent.

“ _For the sin which we have committed before You by running to do evil…And for the sin which we have committed before You by causeless hatred. For the sin…”_

***

Judaism doesn’t really have a concept of [Hell](http://www.jewishboston.com/ive-always-read-that-jews-dont-believe-in-the-concept-of-hell-is-that-true/)—not like the Christians tell it, anyway. And atonement isn’t quite the same either. Pietro had died in the springtime, without having prayed even by rote in ages, but she doesn’t have to worry about his soul in the afterlife, if such things exist. He had fought and died a hero, and that was enough to go on. It had to be.

Wanda vaguely recalls a [mourning element](http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/281636/jewish/Yahrzeit-Memorial-Anniversary.htm) of Yom Kippur—dozens of lit [_yahrzeit_ candles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahrzeit_candle) and an [extra service](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bereavement_in_Judaism#Yizkor) for those with recent losses—but she can’t remember much more than that handful of images. So she slips out of her room, finds a white votive in the kitchen, and returns with it and a matchbook.

[Lighting the candle](http://www.chabad.org/holidays/JewishNewYear/template_cdo/aid/1303865/jewish/How-Many-Candles-on-Yom-Kippur.htm) does count as work, she knows, but it’s hardly the worst thing she has to atone for this year.

“ _We have incurred guilt, we have betrayed, we have stolen, we have spoken falsely…”_

The candle flame flickers with her exhalations, and Wanda thinks of moving at speeds faster than light, of being held and being known, of not needing to ask—for forgiveness or anything else.

***

So she watches the candle burn and thinks about the last few years: the sins and the bravado, the ripples and the unintended consequences, the attempts to do good and the disregard for doing otherwise.

She thinks about [Jonah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_in_rabbinic_literature) and the whale, remembering that its [annual reading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur#Prayer_services) is a reminder of God’s willingness to forgive those who repent. She thinks about diving into the belly of the beast, by choice, and what kind of person would climb out. She thinks of divine missions, of accepting and denying them, and she wonders if Pietro, with his quick mind and quicker feet, would have recalled more of these recitations than she can.

“ _For all these, God of pardon, pardon us, forgive us, atone for us._ ”

No one bothers her throughout the day, for whatever reason, and Wanda is grateful for that.

***

As the sun starts to fade from the sky, Wanda takes the candle and the lemon and steals up to the rooftop. She may have passed Natasha in the hallway, but if she had, the other woman had understood enough to let her go unhindered.

It’s a cool, still night. Wanda sets the candle down, wraps the white sweater she had unearthed from her wardrobe around her shoulders, and stares up at the darkening heavens, waiting for the [three stars](http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/526873/jewish/The-Jewish-Day.htm) to appear as the [Gates close](http://www.chabad.org/holidays/jewishnewyear/template_cdo/aid/5349/jewish/Closing-Services.htm).

She considers the coming year, the sins she may well commit, and those she knows she never will again. She recalls her brother, her parents, and a place that had stopped being home long before it had touched the heavens. She thinks about her new team, this makeshift not-family of people who mean well and try to do good, who on their best days can [repair the world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikkun_olam). She hopes she’s earned her place among them; most days it feels like she has.

For the first time since this morning, her stomach growls. Wanda breathes in the [scents of cloves and citrus ](http://www.dailyhalacha.com/m/halacha.aspx?id=387)to quell the sudden, gnawing hunger; when she looks back to the sky, half a dozen stars are twinkling. A brief gust of wind snuffs out the candle.

It’s a new day in a [new year](http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday2.htm), and the quiet welcome of the new life around her sounds as loudly and cathartically as a [_shofar_](http://www.aish.com/h/hh/rh/shofar/Shofar_Symbolism.html) blast—waking her up, centering her, bringing her home.

**Author's Note:**

> The excerpts of prayer Wanda recalls are from [the Al Cheyt and Ashamu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confession_\(Judaism\)#Ashamnu.2C_the_short_confession), both of which are recited on Yom Kippur.
> 
> A sincere _todah rabah_ to [Lex](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ilostmyshoe/works) for pointing me to this challenge and for her quick beta work. 
> 
> Also, _yasher koach_ to [Prismatic Bell](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Nina_Dances_In_Technicolor) for creating this space in the first place. I never expected to have so many thoughts or feelings on this subject, but this turned out to be a surprisingly cathartic writing experience.
> 
> For the record, I’m an active American Jew with personal experiences in and academic study of both American and European Jewish communities and their histories, as well as a lifetime of observing Yom Kippur. Though Sokovia is of course fictional, I’ve tried to treat it as a contemporary Eastern European country—a place where mostly small Jewish communities persist despite centuries of oppression and where nineteenth-century Orthodox traditions blend with recent decades of atheistic Communist rule and the erasure of religious observance and knowledge that came with it.


End file.
